SFP Archives - EFFECT Photonics

Insights

February 28, 2024

How Pluggable Transceivers Help Your Network Scale

Modern optical networks must be scalable to accommodate escalating bandwidth requirements driven by data-intensive applications…

Modern optical networks must be scalable to accommodate escalating bandwidth requirements driven by data-intensive applications and emerging technologies, from video streaming to cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Beyond bandwidth, a scalable network must adapt to changes in connectivity, coverage, and the integration of new technologies incrementally and cost-effectively. This adaptability optimizes the use of resources, promotes efficient growth, and contributes to the future-proofing of network infrastructure.

Optical networks face several challenges that hinder their further scalability. Infrastructure cost constraints prevent new optical fiber cables or equipment from being deployed. This can be a significant barrier for organizations looking to expand their networks.

Pluggable optical transceivers play a crucial role in making optical fiber networks more scalable by offering flexibility, ease of deployment, interoperability, and the ability to adapt to evolving network requirements. This article will dive into a few of these benefits.

The Benefit of Modularity

Arguably, the critical benefit of pluggable transceivers is a modular approach to network design. As network requirements change, operators can easily replace or upgrade transceivers without disrupting the entire network. This modularity allows for a more flexible and scalable infrastructure, as organizations can scale their networks incrementally based on demand rather than making significant upfront investments.

Network scale Figure 1 — Figure 1: QSFP transceivers plugged at high density into several optical switches on racks.

Pluggable transceivers support various data rates, allowing network operators to mix and match transceivers with different speeds within the same network. This is particularly useful when migrating from lower to higher data rates. It enables a phased approach to network upgrades, where components can be replaced gradually, and existing infrastructure can be utilized until a complete upgrade is economically feasible.

The Benefit of Interoperability

Pluggable transceivers also provide the flexibility of multi-vendor interoperability.

In the past, high-performance line card transponders often prioritized using proprietary features to increase performance while neglecting interoperability. As time went by, however, transceivers got smaller and consumed less power.

For example, in 2018, most coherent line card transponder functions could be miniaturized into CFP2 transceiver modules that were the size of a pack of cards and could be plugged into modules with pluggable line sides. QSFP modules followed a couple of years later, and they were essentially the size of a large USB stick and could be plugged directly into routers.

Figure 4: Coherent module size and power consumption evolution from OIF MSA line card modules to pluggable modules like CFP and QSFP. — Figure 2: Coherent module size and power consumption evolution from OIF MSA line card modules to pluggable modules like CFP and QSFP.

The new generations of pluggable transceivers don’t even suffer from the trade-off of performance vs. interoperability: they can operate in standards-compatible modes for interoperability or in high-performance modes that use proprietary features. They are an excellent fit for network operators who want to take advantage of the lower power consumption and cost, field replaceability, vendor interoperability, and pay-as-you-grow features.

The adherence of pluggables to industry standard sizes, such as SFP and QSFP, ensures a high degree of compatibility and interoperability across different vendors’ equipment. As a result, network operators can seamlessly integrate pluggable transceivers from various manufacturers into their existing infrastructure, allowing organizations to easily add or replace transceivers as needed without disrupting the entire network.

The Benefit of Easier Maintenance

The pluggable nature of transceivers simplifies maintenance tasks and troubleshooting processes in optical networks.

Pluggable transceivers are usually designed to be hot-swappable, allowing them to be inserted or removed from network devices without powering down the entire system. In case of a failure or the need for an upgrade, technicians can easily replace or reconfigure transceivers without disrupting the entire network.

This feature facilitates a smoother installation process, reducing downtime and minimizing disruptions to the network. Instead of replacing entire network devices, operators can focus on replacing or upgrading specific transceivers. This approach also minimizes costs associated with maintenance and upgrades, allowing organizations to allocate resources more efficiently.

Many pluggable transceivers support digital diagnostics monitoring (DDM) or DOM, providing real-time information about the transceiver’s performance, temperature, and optical parameters. This data can be centrally monitored and managed, enhancing the overall visibility and control over the network.

plugs-cables-white — Figure 3: A dense group of optical fiber cables connected to optical switches.

Takeaways

Pluggable transceivers are integral in addressing the scalability challenges modern optical networks face. Pluggable transceivers provide a modular solution, allowing seamless replacement or upgrades without disrupting the entire network, thus facilitating a scalable infrastructure that can evolve incrementally based on demand. Their support for various data rates further enables phased network upgrades, optimizing resource utilization and promoting cost-effective growth.

Moreover, the interoperability benefits of pluggable transceivers contribute significantly to their role in scalability. Additionally, the pluggable nature simplifies installation and maintenance tasks, especially since most pluggables are hot-swappable to minimize downtime and disruptions. Features like digital diagnostics monitoring allow for more proactive and efficient management of pluggables in your network.

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Tags: adaptability, artificial intelligence, bandwidth requirements, benefits, cloud computing, compatibility, connectivity, cost effectively, coverage, data rates, data-intensive applications, emerging technologies, equipment, hot-swappable, industry standard sizes, infrastructure, integration, interoperability, maintenance, modularity, network design, network infrastructure, Networks, operators, optical fiber cables, optical networks, optical parameters, organizations, performance, Pluggable Transceivers, QSFP, Real-time Information, Scalability, scalability challenges, SFP, temperature, troubleshooting, upgrades, vendors, video streaming

Coherent technology can give free-space optical systems greater reach and capacity, enabling these new applications in space and terrestrial links.

Insights

June 2, 2022

Free Space Optics for Access Networks

Optical signals are moving deeper and deeper into access networks. Achieving the ambitious performance goals…

Optical signals are moving deeper and deeper into access networks. Achieving the ambitious performance goals of 5G architectures requires more optics than ever between small cell sites. As stated in a recent report by Deloitte, “extending fiber optics deeper into remote communities is a critical economic driver, promoting competition, increasing connectivity for the rural and underserved, and supporting densification for wireless.”

However, there are cases in which fiber is not cost-effective to deploy. For example, a network carrier might need to quickly increase their access network capacity for a big festival, and there is no point in deploying extra fiber. In many remote areas, the customer base is so small that the costly deployment of fiber will not produce a return on investment. These situations must be addressed with some kind of wireless access solution. Carriers have used fixed microwave links for the longest time to handle these situations.

However, radio microwave frequencies might not be enough as the world demands greater internet speeds and simply changing over to higher carrier frequencies will limit the reach of microwave links. On top of that, the radio spectrum is quite crowded, and a carrier might not have the available licensed spectrum to deploy this wireless link. Besides, microwave point-to-point links produce plenty of heat while struggling to deliver capacity beyond a few Gbps. This is where free-space optics (FSO) comes into play.

FSO is a relatively straightforward technology to explain. A high-power laser source converts data into laser pulses and sends them through a lens system and into the atmosphere. The laser travels to the other side of the link and goes through a receiver lens system and a high-sensitivity photodetector converts those laser pulses back into electronic data that can be processed. In other words, instead of using an optical fiber as a medium to transmit the laser pulses, FSO uses air as a medium. The laser typically operates at an infrared wavelength of 1550nm that is safer on the eye.

Figure 1: Free space optical system diagram

FSO has often been talked about as some futuristic technology to be used in space applications, but it can be used more than that, including ground-to-ground links in access networks.FSO can deliver a wireless access solution that can be deployed quickly and with more bandwidth capacity, security features, and less power consumption than traditional point-to-point microwave links. Furthermore, since it does not use the RF spectrum, there is no need to secure spectrum licenses.

Overcoming the challenges of alignment, and atmospheric turbulence

FSO struggled to break through into practical applications despite these benefits because of certain technical challenges. Communications infrastructure, therefore, focused on more stable transmission alternatives such as optical fiber and RF signals. However, research and innovation over the last few decades are removing these technical barriers. One obstacle to achieving longer distances with FSO had to do with the quality of the laser signal.

Over time, FSO developers have found a solution to this issue in adaptive optics systems. These systems compensate for distortions in the beam by using an active optical element—such as a deformable mirror or liquid crystal—that dynamically changes its structure depending on the shape of the laser beam. Dutch startup Aircision uses this kind of technology in its FSO systems to increase their tolerance to atmospheric disruptions.

Figure 2: How an adaptive optical system works.

Another drawback of FSO is aligning the transmitter and receiver units. Laser beams are extremely narrow, and if the beam doesn’t hit the receiver lens at just the right angle, the information may be lost. The system requires almost perfect alignment, and it must maintain this alignment even when there are small changes in the beam trajectory due to wind or atmospheric disturbances.

FSO systems can handle these alignment issues with fast steering mirror (FSM) technology. These mirrors are driven with electrical signals and are fast, compact, and accurate enough to compensate the disturbances in the beam trajectory. However, even if the system can maintain the beam trajectory and shape, atmospheric turbulence can still degrade the message and cause interference in the data. Fortunately, FSO developers also use sophisticated digital signal processing techniques (DSP) to compensate for these impairments.

These DSP techniques allow for reliable, high-capacity, quick deployments even through thick clouds and fog. FSO links can now handle Gbps capacity over several kilometers thanks to all these technological advances. For example, a collaboration between Aircision and TNO demonstrated in 2021 that their FSO systems could reliably transmit 10 Gbps over 2.5 km. Aircision’s Scientific Director John Reid explained, “it’s an important milestone to show we can outperform microwave E-band antennas and provide a realistic solution for the upcoming 5G system.”

An alternative for safe, private networks

An understated benefit of FSO is that, from a physics perspective, they are arguably the most secure form of wireless communication available today. Point-to-point microwave links transmit a far more directional beam than mobile antennas or WiFi systems, which reduces the potential for security breaches. However, even these narrower microwave beams are still spread out enough to cover a wide footprint vulnerable to eavesdropping and jamming.

At a 1km distance, the beam can spread out enough to cover roughly the length of a building, and at 5km, it could cover an entire city block. Furthermore, microwave systems have side- and back lobes radiating away from the intended direction of transmission that can be intercepted too. Finally, if an attacker is close enough to the source, even the reflected energy from buildings can be used to intercept the signal.

Figure 3: Geometry of an FSO system vs. a microwave link. The microwave link has a much wider spread than FSO, which makes eavesdropping and jamming easier.

Laser beams in FSO are so narrow and focused that they do not have to deal with these issues. At 1km, a typical laser beam only spreads out about 2 meters, and at 5km, only about 5 meters. There are no side and back lobes to worry about and no near-zone reflections. The beam is so narrow that intercepting the transmission becomes an enormous challenge. An intruder would have to get within inches of a terminal or the line of sight, making it easier to get discovered. To complicate things further, the intruder’s terminal would also need to be very well aligned to pick up enough of a signal.

Using Highly-Integrated Transceivers in Free Space Optics

Even though fiber optical communications drove the push for smaller and more efficient optical transceivers, this progress also has a beneficial impact on FSO. As we have explained in previous articles, optical transmission systems have been miniaturized from big, expensive line cards to small, affordable pluggables the size of a large USB stick. These compact transceivers with highly integrated optics and electronics have shorter interconnections, fewer losses, and more elements per chip area. These features all led to a reduced power consumption over the last decade. At EFFECT Photonics, we achieve even further efficiency gains by an optical System-On-Chip (SoC) that integrates all photonic functions on a single chip, including lasers and amplifiers.

Figure 4: Diagram of an FSO system connected to an EFFECT Photonics 10G SFP+ pluggable transceiver via optical fiber.

FSO systems can now take advantage of affordable, low-power transceivers to transmit and receive laser signals in the air. For example, a transceiver based on an optical SoC can output a higher power into the FSO system. By using this higher laser power, the FSO does not need to amplify the signal so much before transmitting it, improving its noise profile. Furthermore, this benefit happens with both direct detect and coherent transceivers. This is a key reason why Aircision has partnered up with EFFECT Photonics to create both direct detect and coherent free-space optical systems, since the startup ultimately aims to reach transmission speeds of 100 Gbps over the air.

Takeaways

FSO has moved from the domain of science fiction to a practical technology that now deserves a place in access networks. FSO can deliver a wireless access solution that can be deployed quickly and with more bandwidth capacity, security features, and less power consumption than traditional point-to-point microwave links. Furthermore, since it does not use the RF spectrum, it is unnecessary to secure spectrum licenses. Affordable direct detect and coherent transceivers based on SoC can further improve the quality and affordability of FSO transmission.

Tags: access networks, adaptive optics, affordable, capacity, coherent, cost-effective, deployments, free space optics, integration, license, miniaturized, photonic integration, Photonics, pluggable, power consumption, private network links, quick deployments, radio spectrum, remote communities, security, SFP, signal processing, turbulence

Insights

October 12, 2021

Integrating Line Card Performance and Functions Into a Pluggable

Article first published 12th October 2021, updated 3rd July 2024. The optical transceiver market is…

Article first published 12^th October 2021, updated 3^rd July 2024.

The optical transceiver market is expected to double in size by 2025, and coherent optical technology has come a long way over the past decade to become more accessible and thus have a greater impact on this market. When Nortel (later Ciena) introduced the first commercial coherent transponder in 2008, the device was a bulky, expensive line card with discrete components distributed on multiple circuit boards.

As time went by, coherent devices got smaller and consumed less power. By 2018, most coherent line card transponder functions could be miniaturized into CFP2 transceiver modules that were the size of a pack of cards and could plug into modules with pluggable line sides. QSFP modules followed a couple of years later, and they were essentially the size of a large USB stick and could be plugged directly into routers. They were a great fit for network operators who wanted to take advantage of the lower power consumption and cost, field replaceability, vendor interoperability, and pay-as-you-grow features.

Figure-Module-Power — Figure 1: Coherent module size and power consumption evolution from OIF MSA line card modules to pluggable modules like CFP and QSFP.

Despite the onset of pluggables, the big, proprietary line card optical engines have still played a role in the market by focusing on delivering best-in-class optical performance. The low-noise, high-power signals they produce have the longest reach for optical links and have wider compatibility with the ROADM multiplexers used in metro and long-haul networks. The smaller CFP2 modules produce, at best, roughly half the laser power of the line card modules, which limits their reach. Meanwhile, even smaller QSFP form factors can not fit optical amplifier components, so their transmit power and reach are much more limited than even a CFP2 module.

All in all, the trade-offs were clear: go for proprietary line card transponders if you want best-in-class performance and longest reach, and go for CFP2 or QSFP transceivers if you want a smaller footprint and power consumption. This trade-off, however, limits the more widespread adoption of coherent technology. For example, mobile network operators need high performance, a smaller footprint, and power consumption so that their metro and access networks can meet the rising demands for 5G data.

So what if we told you the current paradigm of line card transponders versus pluggable transceivers is outdated? Recent improvements in electronic and photonic integration have squeezed more performance and functions into smaller form factors, allowing pluggable devices to almost catch up to line cards.

Integration Enables Line Card Performance in a Pluggable Form Factor

Figure 2: Comparing transmit power, noise, size, and cost of line card transponders and different transceiver pluggable modules. Fully integrated QSFP-DD modules include lasers, amplifiers, and filters inside a single PIC, so they can deliver high transmit powers at small size and low cost.

The advances in photonic integration change the game and can enable high performance and transmit power in the smallest pluggable transceiver form factors. By integrating all photonic functions on a single chip, including lasers and optical amplifiers, pluggable transceiver modules can achieve transmit power levels closer to those of line card transponder modules while still keeping the smaller QSFP router pluggable form factor, power consumption, and cost.

Full photonic integration increases the transmit power further by minimizing the optical losses due to the use of more efficient optical modulators, fewer coupling losses compared to silicon, and the integration of the laser device on the same chip as the rest of the optical components.

Modern ASICs Can Fit Electronics Functions in a Pluggable Form Factor

As important as optical performance is, though, pluggable transceivers also needed improvements on the electronic side. Traditionally, line card systems not only had better optical performance but also broader and more advanced electronic functionalities, such as digital signal processing (DSP), advanced forward error correction (FEC), encryption, and advanced modulation schemes. These features are usually implemented on electronic application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

ASICs benefit from the same CMOS process improvements that drive progress in consumer electronics. Each new CMOS process generation can fit more transistors into a single chip. Ten years ago, an ASIC for line cards had tens of millions of transistors, while the 7nm ASIC technology used in modern pluggables has more than five billion transistors. This progress in transistor density allows ASICs to integrate more electronic functions than ever into a single chip while still making the chip smaller. Previously, every function—signal processing, analog/digital conversion, error correction, multiplexing, encryption—required a separate ASIC, but now they can all be consolidated on a single chip that fits in a pluggable transceiver.

Figure : Evolution of coherent transceiver generations in terms of power consumption and transistor density of ASICs. — Figure 3: Evolution of coherent transceiver generations in terms of power consumption and transistor density of ASICs.

This increase in transistor density and integration also leads to massive gains in power consumption and performance. For example, modern transceivers using 7nm ASICs have decreased their consumption by 50% compared to the previous generation using 16nm ASICs while delivering roughly a 30% increase in bandwidth and baud rates. By 2022, ASICs in pluggables will benefit from a newer 5nm CMOS process, enabling further improvements in transistor density, power consumption, and speed.

Electronic Integration Enables Line-Card System Management in a Pluggable Form Factor

The advancements in CMOS technology also enable the integration of system-level functions into a pluggable transceiver. Previously, functions such as in-band network management and security, remote management, autotuneability, or topology awareness had to live on the shelf controller or in the line card interface, but that’s not the case anymore. Thanks to the advances in electronic integration, we are closer than ever to achieving a full, open transponder on a pluggable that operates as part of the optical network. These programmable, pluggable transceivers provide more flexibility than ever to manage access networks.

For example, the pluggable transceiver could run in a mode that prioritizes high-performance or one that prioritizes low consumption by using simpler and less power-hungry signal processing and error correction features. Therefore, these pluggables could provide high-end performance in the smallest form-factor or low and mid-range performance at lower power consumption than embedded line card transponders.

EFFECT Photonics has already started implementing these system-management features in its products. For example, our direct-detect SFP+ transceiver modules feature NarroWave technology, which allows customers to monitor and control remote SFP+ modules from the central office without making any hardware or software changes in the field. NarroWave is agnostic of vendor equipment, data rate, or protocol of the in-band traffic.

Pluggable transceivers also provide the flexibility of multi-vendor interoperability. High-performance line card transponders have often prioritized using proprietary features to increase performance while neglecting interoperability. The new generations of pluggables don’t need to make this trade-off: they can operate in standards-compatible modes for interoperability or in high-performance modes that use proprietary features.

Takeaways

Coherent technology was originally reserved for premium long-distance links where performance is everything. Edge and access networks could not use this higher-performance technology since it was too bulky and expensive.

Photonic integration technology like the one used by EFFECT Photonics helps bring these big, proprietary, and expensive line card systems into a router pluggable form factor. This tech has squeezed more performance into a smaller area and at lower power consumption, making the device more cost-effective. Combining the improvements in photonic integration with the advances in electronic integration for ASICs, the goal of having a fully programmable transponder in a pluggable is practically a reality. Photonic integration will be a disruptive technology that will simplify network design and operation and reduce network operators’ capital and operating expenses.

The impact of this technological improvement in pluggable transceivers was summarized deftly by Keven Wollenweber, VP of Product Management for Cisco’s Routing Portfolio:

“Technology advancements have reached a point where coherent pluggables match the QSFP-DD form factor of grey optics, enabling a change in the way our customers build networks. 100G edge and access optimized coherent pluggables will not only provide operational simplicity, but also scalability, making access networks more future proof.”

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Tags: 100G, access network, ASIC, CFP, coherent optics, CoherentPIC, DSP, edge network, electronic integration, fully integrated, Fully Integrated PICs, Integrated Photonics, line card, metro access, miniaturization, NarroWave, optical transceivers, photonic integration, PIC, pluggable, pluggable transceiver, QSFP, SFP, small form factor, sustainability telecommunication

Insights

May 19, 2021

EFFECT Photonics are looking forward to exhibiting at the OFC on 07 – 11 June 2021

From June 7-11, 2021, EFFECT Photonics will be exhibiting at the OFC (Optical Networking and…

Insights

November 11, 2020

EFFECT Photonics Operations Centre is driving company growth

Since 2015 EFFECT Photonics has also had a presence based in south west Devon UK,…

Since 2015 EFFECT Photonics has also had a presence based in south west Devon UK, at the University of Plymouth’s Brixham Laboratory. EFFECT Photonics needed a specialised telecommunications product development and manufacturing facility based in Torbay, conveniently situated to provide access to the resources utilised by the well-established Hi-Tech Cluster of companies and expertise locally based there, within the bay area.

Whilst it rapidly built its reputation in various scientific technology sectors, Torbay Hi-Tech flourished in niche areas like photonics, where light is at the technology’s core and the applications are endless. Notwithstanding, Torbay Hi-Tech Cluster is fast becoming the Silicon Valley of the South West of England.

The Operations Centre in Brixham has been, and still is, the driving force behind EFFECT Photonics development. Brixham itself was chosen because of its strong heritage of Nortel and JDSU design, process development and volume manufacturing for telecoms. It made good sense to establish a manufacturing unit in such a fruitful environment.

The centre blends highly experienced ‘veterans’ together with bright, ambitious young professionals in areas like product design, process development, reliability, equipment, manufacturing, and quality engineering, purchasing and logistics. Nearly 100 people are working daily to refine business processes, products, and manufacturing capabilities, but the company is also supporting both staff and apprentices to develop themselves continuously.

One of the most striking challenges Operations faces is to optimise the balance between exceeding customer expectations of quality and delivering an increasing number of cost effective, reliable, predictable, feature-rich photonics products. Despite these conflicting key performance indicators, Operations has established, thanks largely to the dynamic nature of its technology ecosystem, an impressive pipeline of new product introduction (NPI) developments.

Meanwhile, the photonics business has continued to boom and the same can be said for EFFECT Photonics. This requires Operations to engage increasingly in recruitment and training, specification, procurement and commissioning of equipment, shaping the Supply Chain and change management, all with a broad spirit of continuous improvement. EFFECT Photonics is transforming from a promising start-up into a revenue-driven manufacturing success story. The aim is to become a cutting-edge, high-technology company with operational excellence in support of its customers.

Quality has to be embedded in tangible achievements. EFFECT Photonics is set to obtain ISO9001 certification mid 2021, followed soon after by ISO14001.

This is all happening in a world that is changing faster and faster. Without a doubt, there will be obstacles to overcome, like the current Covid-19 pandemic. Large problems must be turned into a series of smaller and more manageable problems, which can be converted into challenges, then into opportunities and into solutions. Constant problem solving has become the main characteristic of daily life in the Operations Centre.

The process of improvement – and therefore change – which is at the centre’s heart will guide EFFECT Photonics in its journey towards an exciting future.

About EFFECT Photonics

EFFECT Photonics delivers highly integrated optical communications products based on its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical System-on-Chip technology. The key enabling technology for DWDM systems is full monolithic integration of all photonic components within a single chip and being able to produce these in volume with high yield at low cost. With this capability, EFFECT Photonics is addressing the need for low cost DWDM solutions driven by the soaring demand for high bandwidth connections between datacenters and back from mobile cell towers. Headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, with additional R&D and manufacturing in South West UK, with sales partners worldwide. www.effectphotonics.com

For further information please contact sales@effectphotonics.com

Tags: 5G, Brixham, EFFECT Photonics, SFP, Torbay

Insights

October 19, 2020

EFFECT Photonics’ optical transceivers tune into the market

Eindhoven – October 2020. EFFECT Photonics, in cooperation with PhotonDelta, gave an interview to the…

Eindhoven – October 2020. EFFECT Photonics, in cooperation with PhotonDelta, gave an interview to the Bits & Chips magazine. Boudewijn Docter, President and co-founder EFFECT Photonics, spoke with Mr. Paul van Gerven, editor Techwatch, about the history of our company and discussed the future of photonics.

“It’s been quite a journey, but EFFECT Photonics is finally ready to take the telecom market by storm with its tunable optical transceivers. In doing so, it will give the Dutch Photondelta integrated photonics ecosystem a most welcome boost, too.

In January 2011, Boudewijn Docter and colleagues from EFFECT Photonics left a Silicon Valley building thinking they would never hear from the internet company again. Sure, it had been a good meeting, if a little short – their appointment, a former colleague of Docter’s, couldn’t spare them more than half an hour. But a small Dutch startup with no track record to speak of snaring one of the world’s largest internet companies as its first customer? That seemed a little too good to be true.

“Yet, to our big surprise, one week later, we got an email, asking when we were planning to submit our proposal,” tells Docter, who together with Tim Koene founded EFFECT Photonics in 2009. Only then, the Eindhoven-based team took a closer look at what their potential customer actually wanted, and whether they could make that happen. “We concluded that the photonic integrated circuit – our core business – was feasible, but its packaging would be a major issue. The kind of sophisticated packaging we needed simply didn’t exist at the time. However, we did have some ideas on how to cost-effectively develop one,” explains Docter, currently serving as president of the company..

Co-funded by their new-found Silicon Valley patron, EFFECT Photonics started developing an integrated optical transceiver that can send sixteen different data streams over a single optical fibre cable. This would enable every fibre internet user to have his own dedicated bandwidth, without giving him his own fibre cable. Clearly, that would be a major step up from users having to share the connection to their provider with a number of neighbours, resulting in performance loss during peak internet hours.

But after a couple of years, EFFECT Photonics’ customer had scaled up its fiber ambitions and decided it didn’t want to wait for new technology after all. When it pulled the plug on the project in 2014, “we thought that was the end of the company,” says Docter. It wasn’t. It took another couple of years and some more twists and turns, but EFFECT Photonics is now moving integrated optical transceivers into production and onto the market. “It has taken us quite a while, but all those years of work have resulted in something much more than a product: we have a technology platform that allows us to create a range of products, each tailored for a specific application. This is exactly what we’ll be doing in the next few years: launching products aimed at the many different telecom applications out there.”

That’s good news for EFFECT Photonics but also for the integrated-photonics industry as a whole. Companies like EFFECT Photonics moving into volume production – and Docter is convinced the volume is there in telecom – will boost the momentum of the technology, allowing it to fan out in other application areas. “It’s like how things evolved in electronics. Chips were originally developed to power computers, but once an industry of a certain size had been established, people started using chips for other applications. This is how it will happen in integrated photonics as well.”

The Dutch integrated-photonics ecosystem, in particular, stands to gain from the steps EFFECT Photonics is about to take, even though none of the companies in it have a need for transceivers themselves. United in the public-private open-innovation partnership called Photondelta, these companies are looking to establish a world-leading integrated-photonics industry in the Netherlands (see inset “Photondelta’s growth strategy”). Effect Photonics is working with several partners in the network, increasing not just their business activity but also the knowledge and experience they need to keep moving forward. The progress that Effect Photonics is making, therefore, represents a very tangible boost to the maturation of the ecosystem.

Photondelta’s growth strategy
Photondelta was set up in January 2019 to boost the emerging Dutch integrated-photonics industry. Its mission: to drive growth in terms of turnover (over 1 billion euros), resources (over 4,000 FTE) and number of participating companies (more than 25) by 2026. These goals are already very challenging considering the relatively limited time frame and resources, but on top of that, Photondelta has to operate in a double-trouble environment: an emerging new technology with (long-term) potential in likewise new emerging applications and markets.
To face this complexity, Photondelta identified four key target markets: medical devices & life sciences, datacom & telecom, infrastructure & transportation and agriculture & food. First, the organization performed a thorough analysis of relevant key trends, drivers and unmet needs by meeting with key prospective customers on a global level. Their unmet needs were then matched with the cluster’s current and future product and technological capabilities.
This resulted, at the end of last year, in the identification and prioritization, based on growth potential, of a limited number of key areas where Photondelta has the potential to further build and expand its portfolio of promising and differentiating solutions and where to focus on to effectively and efficiently target growth.
Earlier this year, dedicated focal area teams, staffed with business and technology experts from companies and knowledge institutes or purposely hired, have been set up and chartered to further sharpen relevant propositions and business/technology roadmaps, in open collaboration with global leading customers and end-users. These insights will drive further expansion of the portfolio offering, acquisition of new customers and cluster partners, as well as guide further Photondelta investments.
The focal area discussed in this article is called “Optical transceivers for ultra-high data transfer for short-haul/metro telecom fiber-based access networks/datacenters.”

Conversely, Photondelta has played an important role in getting EFFECT Photonics where it is today, says Docter. Apart from fostering cooperation and facilitating knowledge sharing, the organization “has really put integrated photonics on the map. Photondelta has provided us with funding directly, but it has also helped us tremendously in finding funding, both from investors and through collaborative research projects.”

Shock
The chip – or, more aptly: system-on-chip – EFFECT Photonics’ Silicon Valley customer was looking for was a 16-channel transceiver capable of dense wavelength-division multiplexing. DWDM allows data from incoming signals to be separated and encoded on different wavelengths of light, which are subsequently sent onward through a single fiber-optic cable. At the receiving end, the colors are disentangled and sent to their final destination: the customers of internet service providers. In essence, DWDM dramatically increases the amount of data that can be sent through a fiber-optic cable or network. Or, conversely, it saves a lot of fiber-optic cables.

So, even though the initial customer didn’t go through with it, EFFECT Photonics was still convinced that its chip made for a great business proposition. “It was clear to us that integrated optics has a lot to offer in fiber-optic networking. The equivalent system composed of discrete components would be prohibitively expensive. So, after the initial shock of the project getting canceled, we decided to pitch our technology to other networking companies, like Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson.”

It worked: leveraging the interest of networking companies, EFFECT Photonics closed a new investment round in 2014 to develop a DWDM optical transceiver, this time geared towards less cost-sensitive business applications, such as corporate offices and cellular towers. “The chip would essentially be the same, except we needed only 10 channels, but more bandwidth per channel.”

After another couple of years of development, however, it dawned on EFFECT Photonics that there was a fundamental problem with their transceiver: even if they would get it market-ready, they probably wouldn’t be able to sell any. “You need transceivers at both ends of the connection. We had been focusing on the transceiver that sends out multiple wavelengths, but at the other end, you need transceivers too, to send a signal back.” Network operators wouldn’t even consider switching to DWDM before these single-channel (or: single-wavelength) transceivers were available at an acceptable price level. And they weren’t.

Flexible and scalable
This commercial bottleneck may have actually been a blessing in disguise for EFFECT Photonics. A single-channel transceiver was basically a much simpler version of what the company had been working on all these years. Developing one would be relatively easy, manufacturing it would be less complex, and even the advanced packaging – for which the company had developed a solution in-house at a facility set up in Brixham, in the southwest of England – would retain its advantages.

“We realized we had a great proposition here because we had tunable lasers. In the multi-channel transceiver, we had been taking advantage of that tunability, but only to keep the wavelength from drifting in response to, for example, temperature changes. For the generation of the light itself, it was more cost-effective to have a separate laser for every wavelength. On the other hand, a single-channel transceiver that can be tuned to a specific wavelength would be a major boon for network operators because they don’t like to keep a different model in stock for every wavelength.”

Ironically, the single-channel transceiver, at the right price level, would even make the multi-channel one unnecessary. “You can just as easily use multiple single-channel transceivers. This has a major advantage, actually: you take as many as you need, while in a multi-channel, the number of channels is fixed. It’s a much more flexible and scalable way to move towards DWDM networking.”

Make its mark
From 2016 onward, EFFECT Photonics focused on the single-channel transceiver. It didn’t take long for the company to complete a prototype that met all specifications. Next up was the grueling process of meeting the demands of stability, reliability, reproducibility and manufacturing yield.

“We really had to go through a learning curve getting our product market-ready. Obtaining your first design that meets the specs is wonderful but not nearly good enough to start selling anything. We had to do a lot of optimization – the optimal design not being the one with the best performance, but with the highest yield and acceptable performance.”

“One standard requirement we had to meet, for example, was keeping our transceiver working for a thousand hours at 85 degrees Celsius and 85 percent humidity. That’s like hanging it just above the surface of a pot of boiling water! Traditionally, optical components have very sturdy packaging to withstand such conditions, using materials like kevlar. We had something entirely new and for cost reasons didn’t want to go that way. So we had to find our own solutions – and we did.”

EFFECT Photonics launched its first product this year, a 10 Gb/s DWDM tunable optical transceiver module. It’s 10-20 percent more expensive than a fixed-wavelength transceiver, which is impressive in itself, as tunable is typically twice as expensive as fixed. Total cost of ownership is where Effect Photonics’ product really shines, however. “We have an autotuning feature, in which the module scans the network for what channel to use. One component, not 40 different model numbers to keep in stock, no engineer required to program it at installation: it’s plug-and-play and hot-pluggable.”

10 Gb/s may not sound like much when transceivers of 400 or 600 Gb/s are being considered for some applications. But there are plenty of applications for which 10 Gb/s is still the best match, assures Docter: his company is already working closely with several companies to get the technology on the road. The transceivers are already in field trials.

EFFECT Photonics will move on to higher bandwidths, of course. “No one develops a chip technology for a single product. We’re now in possession of a technology platform that can relatively easily be expanded upon. Possibly, in other markets than telecom, but right now, we don’t want to distract ourselves.” A 25 Gb/s module is now being manufactured and slated for launch later this year – the 5G community has shown particular interest in this one. A 100 Gb/s version is in development as well and eventually, Effect Photonics will move into the 400-600 Gb/s realm. “At the right volumes, we think that we’ll be able to offer these up to four times cheaper than current solutions.”

Thus, EFFECT Photonics is finally ready to make its mark in the world. Starting with little more than an inkling of untapped potential, it’s taken the startup the better part of a decade to settle on a winning product, and another couple of years to get it market-ready. Now it’s time to reap the rewards.“

Article source: https://bits-chips.nl/artikel/effect-photonics-optical-transceivers-tune-in-to-the-market/

Tags: Bits&Chips, Optical Chips, PhotonDelta, SFP, Telecom, Transceivers

Read about the latest technology trends, events, news, announcements and press releases regarding EFFECT Photonics.

Insights

July 30, 2020

EFFECT Photonics driving a flourishing photonics ecosystem in the Netherlands and the UK

Fiber-optic technologies are a thing of the present, yet not accessible to all considering the…

Fiber-optic technologies are a thing of the present, yet not accessible to all considering the requirements and complexities of different applications in a wide range of contexts. Making photonics applications universally accessible, affordable, and sustainable requires more than the unwavering commitment and concerted efforts of people in a single entity such as a company or an institution. Such a goal calls for the development of a sustainable ecosystem that promotes knowledge and experience sharing and can have a significant impact on customers, investors, and future applications.

PhotonDelta is a growth accelerator for the integrated photonics industry by providing its partners with funding, network and knowledge. Its European network consists out of chip designers, module companies, foundries, researchers, software developers as well as potential offtakers. As an ecosystem, it aims to accelerate the development and manufacturing of integrated photonics solutions through innovation, reducing time-to-market, and creating economy of scale. In the Netherlands, it operates to very high standards regarding photonics applications in R&D. Its strong link to the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/E) through EFFECT Photonics and the University of Twente, provides access to knowledge and innovation – an indisputable advantage for the whole ecosystem.

At the end of April 2020, EFFECT Photonics proudly joined the “PhotonDelta Flagship project“. The project connects and involves the main Dutch industry players in integrated photonics, which are now jointly collaborating in the PhotonDelta ecosystem to make space quality communication modules, reaching for the highest grade in the industry. The consortium is chaired by LioniX International, BRIGHT integrated Photonics, EFFECT Photonics, SMART Photonics, PHIX Photonics Assembly, Technobis, VTEC Lasers & Sensors and TNO. The companies cover the entire supply chain from chip design, manufacturing, assembly, packaging, and testing.

EFFECT Photonics is a frontrunner in the photonics industry with an impressive track record of innovation, sharing, collaboration and growth over the last decade. Initially a spin-off of the TU/E, the company is now a global market leader in optical transceivers, a key player in the telecoms industry and one of the founding members of PhotonDelta. “The network is aimed at building all parts of the supply chain together in the spirit of the semiconductor electronics model, with a number of specialist companies working together on different application areas,” President EFFECT Photonics Dr. Boudewijn Docter says.

EFFECT Photonics’ focus is on telecom applications with a view to offering an integrated, adjustable, and holistic product. From the outset, the company has consistently responded to ensuing market challenges with remarkable speed and resourcefulness. As a result, when packaging became an issue in the past, the company promptly responded by making novel packaging happen in-house, lacking alternative options. In principle, EFFECT Photonics has always been committed to the idea of an efficient and effective ecosystem that could ensure unhindered performance and supply throughout different parts of the value chain.

A pioneering ecosystem – novel technologies and business practices

In the UK, the ecosystem has a lot to offer in the area of high-quality precision manufacturing. “That’s one of the key things we bring together in EFFECT Photonics – the hightech from the PhotonDelta network combined with manufacturing experience from the UK,” continues Docter.

As a pioneer of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology focusing on telecom applications, EFFECT Photonics spent several years making the technology applicable to volume production. The telecom market was first to adopt the PIC technology, rendering EFFECT Photonics as a promising volume driver of the PhotonDelta ecosystem, and a trailblazer from a technological and business viewpoint. Initiating an open model of collaboration through a network of companies, individuals and institutions is tantamount to revolutionising business practices in the industry. In contrast, competitors abroad appear to be adhering to a more conventional norm of a closed, in-house model rather than a collaborative one. Given current trends and circumstances in the industry, as well as global developments, EFFECT Photonics is confident that this open model is going to prevail going forward within PhotonDelta. This proposition is all the more justifiable in the light of current health hazards, natural disasters and worrisome financial circumstances. Challenging conditions impose a sense of urgency on all stakeholders and intensify the need to pool knowledge and resources. Ensuring optimal and timely outcomes throughout the value chain is a key prerequisite for a worthy and attractive investment opportunity in photonics.

An organic ecosystem – reaching out and maximising opportunities

The photonics ecosystem of the UK in Torbay has been built over the last 50 years and includes several competitors, such as Lumentum and II-VI. A great part of it originated from ITT, JDS-Uniphase and Nortel. Nortel employed 5,500 people in the area for their lead site, within the photonics network, which in turn led to their domination of the 10-Gig market. Today, the Torbay Hi-Tech Cluster provides products and services to a global multi-national community.

After the telecom crash, a lot of the manufacturing was outsourced, but a substantial number of skilled designers of high-tech products for photonics manufacturing stayed on. As a consequence, according to Dr. Paul Rosser, EFFECT Photonics VP of Operations, “there’s locally a strong ecosystem supporting the design and development of high-precision manufacturing equipment, for example things like fiber-align stations, if we look more broadly in the UK then we also do have access to leading Indium- Phosphide fabs as well, and there you could think of Lumentum.” Also, due to a partial link to Nortel, prior to the telecoms crash there was access to a global supply chain which EFFECT Photonics is keen to bring back and push for it to become more European through the Eindhoven initiative.

“We very much help to shape the consortium as it is right now, and all the partners that we work with locally are all members of PhotonDelta,” explains Docter. “So, for example we work with SMART Photonics, which is also a founding partner, as well as knowledge institutes like the TU/E where we do some collaborative research projects.” He points out that apart from sharing knowledge and experience in telecom and other application fields, funding is a major requirement for effective application and successful business development. “PhotonDelta has already made significant funding available for direct loans to partners of the ecosystem and R&D projects.” Docter adds, further reinforcing the pioneering yet pragmatic and sustainable mindset of the ecosystem.

About EFFECT Photonics

EFFECT Photonics delivers highly integrated optical communications products based on its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical System-on-Chip technology. The key enabling technology for DWDM systems is full monolithic integration of all photonic components within a single chip and being able to produce these in volume with high yield at low cost. With this capability, EFFECT Photonics is addressing the need for low cost DWDM solutions driven by the soaring demand for high bandwidth connections between datacenters and back from mobile cell towers. Headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, with additional R&D and manufacturing in South West UK, with sales partners worldwide. www.effectphotonics.com

For further information please contact sales@effectphotonics.com

Tags: IntergratedPhotonics, PhotonDelta, Photonics, SFP

System-On-Chip: A smaller world full of big advantages

Insights

July 17, 2020

System-On-Chip: A smaller world full of big advantages

For those new to the subject, a System-on-Chip (SoC) is essentially an integrated electronic circuit…

For those new to the subject, a System-on-Chip (SoC) is essentially an integrated electronic circuit that takes a single platform and integrates a whole electronic or computer system onto it. As the name suggests, it combines that entire system on a single chip. To describe it very simply: imagine a full computer with a CPU, input and output ports, internal memory and so on; then miniaturize and compress it to fit on one chip. Depending on the kind of system, it can perform a variety of functions including signal processing, wireless communication, artificial intelligence and more.

The primary goal is to reduce energy waste and save on expense, while reducing the space occupied by large systems. With an SoC you achieve all those goals, as you essentially downsize what are normally multi-chip designs onto a single processor that uses much less power. The real-world applications of SoCs are practically limitless and priceless. They are used in most, if not all, portable devices, such as smartphones, cameras, tablets, and other wireless technologies. In fact, your smartphone is a good example of how an SoC works.

Use of your cell phone is not limited to making and receiving calls. You also use it to browse the internet, view videos, listen to audio, take photos, play games, send texts, and much more. None of this would be possible without multiple elements such as a graphics card, internet support, wireless connections, and GPS, to name but a few. An SoC allows you to take all of these components, put them on a single chip, shrink the whole package down to a size that can fit in the palm of your hand, and carry it around in your phone.

Along with the example of our portable phones, SoC is frequently used in equipment involved in the Internet of Things, embedded systems and, of course, photonics.

EFFECT Photonics’ spin on SoC

While electrical SoCs have been around for some time, EFFECT Photonics is the first company in the world to introduce a full optical SoC – combining all the optical elements needed for optical networking onto a single die.
One key application of EFFECT Photonics’ SoC technology is within dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), and this is regarded as an important innovation in optical networks. DWDM is scalable, transparent and enables provision of high-bandwidth services. It is the technology of choice for many networking applications today. By using many different wavelengths of light to route data, these systems are more efficient, flexible, and cost-effective to build, own and operate compared to single-channel, point-to-point links. Thanks to our high-density electrical interconnect and packaging technology, the optical system-on-a-chip can be assembled for volume manufacture at low cost.

As the channel count increases, the physical space in which the equipment is housed gets larger and the power consumption increases as well. The key enablers for DWDM systems at the edge of the network are photonic integration of components within a single chip; and the ability to produce these in volume with high yield at low cost. This requires a change in the way indium phosphide (InP) chips are designed, tested, and packaged, which is where EFFECT Photonics comes in.

One of the key challenges for DWDM technology is the need for as many optical light sources, modulators, and detectors as there are channels in a system. Building and managing these using conventional discrete fibre optic components, line cards, AWG (arrayed waveguide) multiplexers and rackmount channel monitors quickly becomes prohibitively expensive. However, we can integrate all the following optical functions within a single InP chip: tuneable laser sources, AWG multiplexers, high-speed detectors, high-speed modulators, power taps and splitters, and channel monitoring.

Our SoC technology provides more bandwidth at a lower cost for applications like mobile fronthaul networks (5G), metro access networks and data centre interconnects (DCI). EFFECT Photonics has created a unique platform approach to integration, using high-yielding building blocks within the wafer. Growing different quaternary alloys of indium phosphide on a single wafer provides the following advantages:

All active and passive optical functions of a DWDM system combined into a single chip
Our unique packaging technology that scales in volume cost-effectively [parallel structure]
Smaller in size, lower in power
Industry-standard form factors and custom variants

For more on our optical system-on-a-chip products, visit: https://effectphotonics.com/stagingenvironment123/products/pluggable-modules-direct-detect/
Get in touch with us for further information by sending your request to: sales@effectphotonics.com

Tags: 5G, DWDM, IntergratedPhotonics, Photonics, SFP

Insights

June 25, 2020

EFFECT Photonics: A novel packaging competence that delivers

It is difficult to remember a time before the Internet and wireless communications. Accommodating the…

It is difficult to remember a time before the Internet and wireless communications. Accommodating the tremendous growth in data traffic has been and will continue to be dependent on an ever-expanding fibre optic network. Data centres are increasing in number and size to accommodate the ever-increasing needs for higher data transmission speeds and capacity. At the same time, so-called deep fibre architectures are pushing fibre optics closer to the end users’ homes and buildings. The world is beginning to take advantage of 5G interconnectivity and real-time communication for applications from enhanced mobile broadband and the IoT to mission-critical scenarios of self-driving cars or remotely controlled medical procedures. Low-latency, high-bandwidth optical networks will form the foundations of these technologies.

Light as a signal carrier enables much higher data transmission rates over greater distances and with lower losses compared to electrical signals. To encode data into light for transmission and decode it back into electrical signals upon receipt, optical communications rely on optical transceivers. Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is transceiver technology that has proved itself indispensable when it comes to adding capacity to existing networks. A standard transceiver, often called a grey transceiver, is a single-channel device – each fibre has a single laser source. DWDM accommodates large numbers of signals carried as different wavelengths of light in a single fibre to route data on different ‘channels’, significantly enhancing bandwidth. Importantly, it is also more flexible and cost-effective to build, own and operate than multiple single-channel point-to-point links.

Full monolithic integration of all photonic components within a single chip (a photonics integrated circuit or PIC) is a key enabler of DWDM technology that achieves these goals. It is by no means industry-standard, but EFFECT Photonics makes it possible. Award-winning System-on-Chip integration of functionalities including the laser, amplification and wavelength locking enables high-density electrical interconnect, minimal optical loss, and simplified production and testing relative to systems built in manual processes from individual components. The result is enhanced optical transmission with low energy consumption, reduced cost, and significantly smaller physical size of the module.
The PIC technology creates even more benefits by facilitating cost-effective packaging solutions. EFFECT Photonics proprietary packaging technology is developed and implemented in-house. This not only gives us the ability to tailor packaging to our PICs but also reduces the time and cost associated with development and testing. Importantly, it provides greater independence from market fluctuations and global uncertainties and generates supply security.

Dr. Paul Rosser, Chief Operations Officer at EFFECT Photonics, summarises: “Optical communication is used for increasingly shorter distances thanks to growing system performance and bandwidth requirements. As a result, innovative packaging approaches are needed that closely integrate optical technology within the system. Nowadays, pluggable transceivers are implemented at the system edge. In addition, embedded optical modules for onboard assembly are becoming more apparent in bandwidth-intensive applications. The first high-performance computing systems where optical transceivers are mounted onto the switch chip package have already entered the market. However, more widespread adoption of optical link technology is limited by cost and assembly activities involving optics. EFFECT Photonics applies integration strategies across all levels to improve optics’ performance and functionality, while lowering cost.”

The robotics foundations required for volume packaging are in place. As EFFECT Photonics rapidly expands its product portfolio with a diverse range of technologies, either additional standardised and modular packaging solutions or many customised ones are required. The company is pursuing funding and investment opportunities to enhance packaging capabilities in two critical ways. The first is expanding both the number and specialisation of talented and motivated scientists and engineers in various fields, including mechatronics and software development and testing. Photonics is a relatively new and quite diverse field. The ability to train qualified new hires in specialised areas such as packaging, automation, and data analysis relevant to EFFECT Photonics will significantly augment current capabilities. Second, producing in volume with high yield at low cost will also require associated infrastructure expansion.

EFFECT Photonics is uniquely positioned to become a global supplier of choice for optical transceivers thanks to its cost-effective and high-performance optical System-on-Chip design, innovative electronics for high-speed capability and unique non-hermetic packaging technology supporting scaling in volume cost-effectively. This novel packaging competence allows our company to offer customers significant savings without compromising the performance they expect.
For more information, please contact us at info@effectphotonics.com

Tags: Packaging, Photonics, SFP

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